McHenry Downtown Theatre
1204 N. Green Street,
McHenry,
IL
60002
1204 N. Green Street,
McHenry,
IL
60002
1 person
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The theater was opened on February 21, 1929 as the Empire Theatre, renamed the Colony Theatre in 1939, it burned in 1952.
It was rebuilt to the plans of architect John van der Meulen, and opened in February 1955. It was later twinned in the 1980’s and closed suddenly as a discount house managed by Rhyan Management (RMC) in January 2000. It reopened in 2003 as a discount first-run theater operated by “C” You at the Movies.
Contributed by
Brian Wolf
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Recent comments (view all 4 comments)
Here are photos of this theatre.
Here is their official website. There is also a photo of the theatre on this page.
The entry for Chicago architect John van der Meulen in the 1962 American Architects Directory lists this 1955 theater among his works. Later in his career van der Meulen and his architectural partner Ralph Rapson became known for the American embassies they designed in various cities, including Stockholm, Copenhagen, and The Hague.
The McHenry Theater could still be a handsome Midcentury Modern building if they’d rip that shingled fake mansard and other accumulated bits of ticky-tacky off of it. It deserves better treatment than it’s had.
Here is a photo I took yesterday of the McHenry Theater. We saw a late-night showing of “Grease” here. My partner, who used to live in the area, noticed that there was the same mildewy smell in the auditorium that there was when he last was here close to a decade ago. Also, we noticed that there is an unusually large space between the screen and where the seats begin. It looks like there could easily fit another 4 or 5 rows, and still have a decent amount of space between the seats and the screen.